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Where Taxpayers and Advisers Meet

When a laser print is not capital expenditure ...

markusuk
Posts:26
Joined:Wed Aug 06, 2008 3:16 pm

Postby markusuk » Fri Mar 25, 2005 11:15 pm

Greetings all..

I wish to purchase a laser printer for my part time sole trader consultancy. I need this colour laser printer for a specific purpose and it costs about £250. I comes with consumables.

Not the cost of replacement of the consumables (5 toners) is £300 (thats how they make them so cheap!). With technology moving in I might well scrap the printer and just buy another one when the toner runs out for the first time. On that basis and given the cost of the consumables, can I realistically treat the printer 'as a consumable' and not capital expenditure. Obviously this just comes off gross profit rather than dealing with first year allowances etc...

cheers

Mark

deanshepherd
Posts:1019
Joined:Wed Aug 06, 2008 3:23 pm

Postby deanshepherd » Sun Mar 27, 2005 5:25 am

Strictly speaking, the printer should be classified as capital expenditure and a claim made for capital allowances which would be 50% in the first year (for 2004/05). You do have the option of capitalising it as a short-life asset and then you would get the full allowance when you scrapped the item.

Given the small amount involved, I would not envisage a problem in including this as a consumable item in your accounts if you did scrap the item within 1 year.

You should be aware that the Revenue may challenge this treatment if they were to enquire into your accounts, particularly if it were bought shortly before your financial year end.

I hope you have found this information useful.

Dean Shepherd MAAT ATT BSc
taxhelp@mmi-online.co.uk


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